Customer support
Help Scout alternatives
2 open-source projects that already do this job. Free to use - not free to run, which is what the numbers on the right are for.
The projects
chatwoot/chatwoot★35,562 GitHub starslicence unclearOmnichannel customer support platform with shared inbox, live chat, and integrations.Open on GitHub ↗freescout-help-desk/freescout★4,464 GitHub starsAGPL-3.0 licenceSelf-hosted help desk and shared mailbox for email-based customer support.Open on GitHub ↗
What you give up either way
- HIPAA compliance and audited security posture out of the box
- Built-in integrations & app ecosystem (100+ apps)
- Enterprise features: advanced workflows, SLA policies, SSO/SAML, and account management
- Polished reliability and scale guarantees (uptime/SLAs and large-scale API rate limits)
- AI Answers automated resolution tuning and analytics
An open-source project doing the core job proves a replacement is possible. It does not prove it matches Help Scout, and it does not prove anyone has run it for a month. How we decide.